


Partialism

by Vrunka



Series: Obsessions and Other Sins [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Finger Sucking, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka
Summary: Partialism - (n) a type of paraphilia involving sexual interest in, or fixation with, a certain body partOrDutch is cleaning his gun again and Arthur cannot seem to stop watching his hands.





	Partialism

**Author's Note:**

> Back from the dead must be a Christmas miracle.

Dutch is cleaning his gun.

This should not be an issue—is not an issue—except for the fact that it very much is. His fingers are nimble and grease stained as he flicks the rag over the cylinder. As his thumb cocks the hammer back to wipe down the metal.

Graceful, efficient movements.

That should not be an issue.

Except for the fact that Arthur cannot seem to keep himself from watching. He’s lost more of hands of poker in the last week getting distracted every time Dutch decides to polish his pistol out in the open where anyone could see. And while so far no one has really seemed to notice, it’s a problem.

A big one.

Dutch’s graceful hands. With his large knuckles that should seem so imposing and so blunt, but are instead quick and perfect and proportionate, beautiful. Dutch’s hands are heavy, they are thick, manly. They speak volumes about who he is.

And Arthur has volumes and volumes of journal pages dedicated to sketches of them. Studies and more studies.

An obsession.

A terrible one.

A shameful one that has Arthur biting down on his own more delicate fingers when he brings himself off in the dead of night. Imagining instead that it is Dutch’s fingers. That is Dutch’s hands touching him, pinning him, stroking him. Tangling with his tongue to muffle his noises.

Arthur doesn’t have a good way to justify this obsession. This deviancy. This problem.

So he does what Dutch Van der Linde does best. He ignores the issue, pretends that it isn’t there, circling his peripheral. He battens down and weathers the storm.

Or he tries to.

Dutch is cleaning his gun again and Arthur is watching and pretending that he isn’t when John rolls back into camp. Rides back in, to be more accurate. Arrives like he is the King of Fucking Sheeba. The Goddess descending. They haven’t seen him in months, actual literal months, and he rides back into camp like it is nothing. Like he was never gone at all.

Dutch looks up from his pistol. There is dirt beneath his fingernails. Arthur can see it even from a distance. For a long time, Dutch and John just stand there. The pistol lies upon the table, half-covered by the cloth Dutch had been using to clean it.

Arthur wonders if Dutch will make John wait for him to finish polishing it before he puts a bullet through the deserter bastard’s eye.

Arthur wonders and he watches and he waits.

—

“You think I’m making a mistake,” Dutch says.

Arthur looks up from his bottle of whiskey. He looks up and over to where Dutch is outlined by the night fire, a halo around him, backed by the rancorous singing of the other members of camp. All of whom are so happy that John is back. All of whom are so thrilled and so overjoyed and—

“It’s okay, you know, Arthur, to tell me,” Dutch says. He steps closer. The noise and the light from the fire step with him, collapsing inward. Arthur swallows the mouthful of liquor he had swigged moments before Dutch spoke to him. It burns and twists all the way down his throat.

Maybe he’s had too much already, sulking to himself away from the rest of the party. Maybe he should stop.

Maybe he needs to.

“I dunno what your talkin’ about, Dutch,” Arthur says instead. Lying through his teeth to the only man he’s never, ever lied to. Lying through his teeth, and his clenching, nauseous stomach.

“My boy,” Dutch says, chuckling. A hand clapping down on Arthur’s shoulder. Warm and heavy and just as drunk as Arthur feels. Off-kilter. “I want you to be honest with me.” Dutch’s fingers wander. They touch Arthur’s chin, press until Arthur tips his head. The light from the fire catches his eyes, makes him squint. Dutch’s fingers linger.

“You know I don’t,” Arthur begins to say before trailing off. “I ain’t ever questioned you before this.”

“I know, son.”

His fingers echo the sentiment, sliding gentle along Arthur’s jaw. Oh, oh, oh how he knows. How he knows. Arthur swallows again, though there is no whiskey this time to sour his throat. His fingers are trembling around the neck of the bottle.

“I just wish you’d—that you’d listen, Dutch,” Arthur says. “That I’m...that we’re—that takin’ him back isn’t gonna help us in the long run. He left us, Dutch, left us. And he—I mean there ain’t nothing keepin’ him from doing it again. From-from-from doin’ it when we need him.”

Dutch is standing entirely too close. His palm is warm and rough with callouses against Arthur’s cheek. His breath stinks of rum when he says, “You were never really a religious kid, were you, Arthur?”

Arthur scoffs. Pulls his face out of Dutch’s grip only to be caught again a second later. “You didn’t really raise me to be,” Arthur says, “so no, I guess I wasn’t. I’m...I’m a goddamn man, Dutch, you ain’t gotta chide me like some...some nun over it.”

“Not chiding, son. I just,” Dutch blows the rest of the sentence between his teeth. Curls his fingers against Arthur’s cheek, catching on the stubble he’s been growing in. “There’s a story in it that you—that I...Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is: John is home, Arthur, but it don’t mean I love my most loyal son any less. My world is still yours, Arthur, even if John is back with us among the living.”

The party raises in pitch, Uncle’s singing off-key and rambling. No one is paying attention to Arthur and his solitude and his sudden, encroaching guilt. No one but Dutch. Only ever, ever Dutch.

And Dutch’s world is Arthur’s. And Arthur’s world is...

Arthur ducks his head slightly as he grips Dutch’s hand where it is touching him. When his lips brush Dutch’s palm, he can feel the ripple of it pass through his skin, pulse in his wrist twitching beneath Arthur’s thumb.

Or maybe it’s Arthur’s pulse, going rapid and fluttery.

Except he can see it too. See the shiver of it pass up Dutch’s arm and his shoulder, can see the shock of it splash across his face. His eyes going wide, wide, black as pitch midnight backed by that roaring fire.

“Arthur,” Dutch says. Low and choked. A warning sign Arthur chooses to ignore. He scrapes his teeth down the heel of his palm, panting into Dutch’s skin. Again Dutch says his name, “Arthur, you’re...drunk, son. You gotta—“

And then his voice stops, halts and stutters in his throat as Arthur catches his thumb between his teeth. Biting down just hard enough to get his point across. The lingering taste of smoky metal, the harsh bite of gun oil. Dutch hasn’t visited the wash bin, probably just wiped his hands off of his slacks.

Dutch’s whole face goes tense. Drenched in shadow, little glittering jewels of sweat. His mustache twitches. “Arthur,” he says for a third time. “Are you sure?”

His thumb slips free, but his hand doesn’t move far. His fingers curl to run his knuckles over Arthur’s chin.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I asked if you were sure, son.”

“More sure than-than anything.” He’s blushing. Suffocating in his own blood as it gathers close and hot, hot, hot in his cheeks and his throat. “Wanted—I’ve wanted—“

“All you had to do was ask.” Dutch’s other hand raises, plucks the bottle from fingers that Arthur can no longer feel. He drinks deep from the whiskey, tosses it away when he is done.

Tomorrow it will be just another bottle Miss Grimshaw must collect before they can break camp. It will have no meaning. No connotation.

Not like now, when it’s an excuse to watch Dutch’s throat work. To watch his Adam’s apple tremble as he swallows. Another obsession to add to the list. Arthur’s face lands in the crook of it when Dutch pulls him closer. When Dutch’s fingers slide once more along Arthur’s lips. Bold, quick, graceful.

Arthur opens for them. Allows Dutch to slide past his teeth, press down gently on his tongue. He remains docile, pressing himself fully into Dutch’s capable hands. Trusting him fully.

As he always has.

Maybe he whines, or breathes too loudly in the close space between them, because Dutch only allows the embrace for a second longer and then he steps back. His hand doesn’t leave Arthur’s hip. It’s the only part that doesn’t feel like rejection.

“Oh Arthur, son,” Dutch coos. “We should take this somewhere more private.”

And while Arthur doesn’t see that they need to—the others will notice or they won’t and betting man that he is, he’s going with won’t—but he trusts Dutch.

Knows in his heart Dutch makes the right calls.

“Here,” Dutch says, holding his hands forth when they reach the relative seclusion of Arthur’s cot. “Show me what you want, son. Show me how you want it.”

And Arthur, for as much thinking about it as he has done, he has not done all that much practical thinking about it. He holds Dutch’s big, big hand with one of his own. Quiet for a moment, reverent.

Someone by the fire is laughing, a woman, shrill, thrilling joy. It breaks over Arthur like ice water. 

He drags Dutch’s hand to center of him, presses it against his crotch with such force he almost over-balances. Molds his fingers over Dutch’s to press them tight, tight, tight against the front of his jeans. There’s something manic in the motion, him rutting against Dutch’s hand and panting into Dutch’s neck. Manic, desperate, sweating with sudden urgent desire.

He barely even realizes how pathetic it is until Dutch shushes him.

“It’s okay, son,” he is saying, fingers moving on their own, loosening enough to undo the buttons of Arthur’s slacks. “It’s alright, Arthur. I’ve got you son.”

“Dutch,” Arthur starts to say. Doesn’t get much further than the first syllable when his own voice breaks. When Dutch’s calloused, perfect, beautiful, big, huge fucking hands slip beneath the material of his pants. And touch Arthur’s skin.

Arthur’s cock.

Arthur breaks.

It isn’t pretty nor poetic the way he always assumed it would be with Dutch.

Arthur sobs, his whole body goes taut and brittle like a glass window pane. Suspended between wood, between the points where Dutch is holding him. A hand on his cock, a hand keeping him steady at the small of his back. Dutch strokes him, firm touches, gripping the entire length of Arthur’s erection. Drawing from him, small, grunted embarrassments.

He’s babbling into Dutch’s throat, lips and teeth scraping with each word he says. “God, Dutch, please, Dutch, need this,” over and over. A litany of nonsense. Of endearments and promises that Arthur is only half aware that he is even saying.

He’s drunk, was before Dutch approached him, but it’s more than just that.

Dutch’s hand slides up the curve of his spine, up the nape of his neck and into his hair. Those big fingers tangling in the unkempt strands. Those big fingers tipping his head until Arthur’s face is no longer buried in his neck. Dutch stares into his soul with those big, dark eyes.

And Arthur shuts up, finally.

Dutch’s tongue in his mouth shuts him up. There is nothing refined about it. There doesn’t have to be. It’s Dutch, it’s enough.

Arthur drags a ragged breath in through his nose, fingers twitching mad spasms on Dutch’s shoulders as Dutch plunders his mouth. Arthur rubs his tongue against Dutch’s, whining as he comes into Dutch’s palm.

His orgasm blindsides him. Leaves him shaking and gutted in Dutch’s hands.

“I’m sorry,” he says again when Dutch breaks the kiss with a look. An eyebrow raised in disbelief as he rubs his fingers together. It’s gotten on his vest, the front of Arthur’s slacks is drenched with it. And Arthur is burning, burning with his shame again. “I shoulda—“

“That was quick, Arthur,” Dutch says, chuckling. Laughing. That makes it okay. It is Dutch, so of course it is okay. “Pent up. I wish you had told me sooner.”

“How could I?” Arthur asks.

Dutch frowns. With his clean hand he brushes Arthur’s bangs back from where they have fallen across his brow. “You can always come to me, son. Always. I didn’t think I had to tell you that.”

“You don’t. I know I just—“ Arthur swallows. He grabs Dutch’s soiled hand before Dutch can wipe it off. He cleans each finger with his tongue. Feels Dutch watching him as he does. His own release tastes thick, salty. Not altogether pleasing, but it gets the point across.

Dutch’s throat trembles with his breathing.

“Arthur,” he says. “Oh my dear Arthur.”

He cups Arthur’s chin, strokes down the line of Arthur’s throat. Soft and soft and gentle. Those big hands, showing their grace again. The delicacy in them. He kisses Arthur’s forehead, right between his eyes.

“You should get some rest, son,” he says. “The party will wind down soon but we should get a move on in the morning.”

“But, Dutch, you—“

“You don’t have to worry about me tonight, Arthur,” Dutch says. Tonight. Tonight. The implication is thick and palpable.

“Okay,” Arthur says.

Dutch’s touch lingers just a second longer. Pulse fluttering over Arthur’s pulse, mismatched beating, trembling, fluttering madness. Arthur swallows and Dutch is gone.

Arthur won’t think of it as fleeing. The ‘tonight’ means it is not fleeing. He falls back into his cot and covers his face with his hands and he does not let himself think of it as fleeing.

Dutch is his world and Dutch’s world is his. And he believes it with every small scrap of his loyal being.

Even if deep, deep down in him, he doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously I have like fifteen more rdr fics that I’ve started and I just can’t seem to find the inspiration to finish. I love this game but I don’t feel like I do it justice plus writer’s block has just got me bleeeh. Anyway I’m over on twit @drunkavrunka or on tumblr still at vrunkawrites if you wanna stop by and say hi.


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